1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a technology for managing of information on an article shared among users on a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a network environment is put into place in every company, so that individual members of a company can exchange opinions with one another via the network. For example, a company member (hereinafter, “member”) creates an article (e.g., an article about messages related to company activities, topical news, technical topics, or topics of conversation among friends) using a blog or the like, and makes information on the created article public to the other members. The publication range of the article created by the member depends on situations. Namely, the publication range often spreads over entire members or is limited only to colleagues of the member. The member who created the article sets the publication range of the article in view of the content of the article, the company regulations, and the like.
By so setting, only the limited members are accessible to the article, leakage of personal information on the member is prevented, and leakage of secret information associated with the article to the malicious third party is prevented.
A personal-connection information search system (hereinafter, “search system”) is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-141381. According to the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-141381, information on personal connections of a plurality of users and information on the respective users are registered in a database in advance. If the search system receives search-target information from a terminal of one of the users, then the search system refers to the information registered in the database and outputs personal-connection information corresponding to the received search-target information to the users concerned. It is thereby possible to mediate between the personal connections among the respective users.
The conventional technique as disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-141381 has, however, the following disadvantages. The members who are eligible to view the article created by a certain member are inefficiently notified of the article. As a result, information included in the article cannot be used effectively.
Moreover, it is difficult to define the setting of the publication range of the article. Due to this, the publication range inadvertently fails to include a member who should be within the publication range. Conversely, the publication range inadvertently includes a member who should not be within the publication range. As a result, the information on the article is not made public to those who need the information on the article (or those who should view the article). Moreover, leakage of secret information on the article may possibly occur.